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Nuclear Power
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Curly Judge wrote: »I have worked out, to my own satisfaction, that the Fast Breeder Reactor is the way [or at least one of the ways] to go.
Perhaps you would be kind enough to point out the misunderstanding I am labouring under that causes you such mirth?
The nuclear industry creates the problem of nuclear waste and then proposes a "solution" to it...that's what amuses me.
FBRs don't eliminate waste, they only reduce the toxicity and half-life, you still have to dump it somewhere which is why the US invested $10 billion to study dumping nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain before abandoning the project due to cost over runs.
There's no magic bullet for Nuclear waste.
My main objection to Nuclear Energy is just simply the cost of it and supporters delude themselves and anyone gullible enough to believe them that it's a dream source of energy.
There are countless examples of where it's shown to be a complete failure.
EDF were given the job of constructing a modern nuclear reactor in France which is 4 years behind schedule and €2.7 billion over budget.
Areva and Siemens started constructing a modern nuclear reactor for Finland in 2005 which was scheduled to be completed by 2009. It's estimated cost was €3.2 billion. 4 years on, it's still not finished and the estimated cost is now €8.5 billion
The MOX program in US is 10 years behind schedule, has cost an estimated $5 billion and has no customers willing to use MOX fuel. Just another fine example of the Nuclear Industry cleverly conning the tax payer.
Nuclear Energy has been a complete financial and technological disaster from the very beginning in every single country not to mention a danger to the environment and people, yet supporters in Ireland think it will somehow be different here?
Keep dreaming of your Nuclear Utopia because without a source of cheap hydrocarbon energy required to construct the reactors, it will never happen.0 -
The nuclear industry creates the problem of nuclear waste and then proposes a "solution" to it...that's what amuses me.
FBRs don't eliminate waste, they only reduce the toxicity and half-life, you still have to dump it somewhere which is why the US invested $10 billion to study dumping nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain before abandoning the project due to cost over runs.
There's no magic bullet for Nuclear waste.
My main objection to Nuclear Energy is just simply the cost of it and supporters delude themselves and anyone gullible enough to believe them that it's a dream source of energy.
There are countless examples of where it's shown to be a complete failure.
EDF were given the job of constructing a modern nuclear reactor in France which is 4 years behind schedule and €2.7 billion over budget.
Areva and Siemens started constructing a modern nuclear reactor for Finland in 2005 which was scheduled to be completed by 2009. It's estimated cost was €3.2 billion. 4 years on, it's still not finished and the estimated cost is now €8.5 billion
The MOX program in US is 10 years behind schedule, has cost an estimated $5 billion and has no customers willing to use MOX fuel. Just another fine example of the Nuclear Industry cleverly conning the tax payer.
Nuclear Energy has been a complete financial and technological disaster from the very beginning in every single country not to mention a danger to the environment and people, yet supporters in Ireland think it will somehow be different here?
Keep dreaming of your Nuclear Utopia because without a source of cheap hydrocarbon energy required to construct the reactors, it will never happen.
Chernobyl and Fukishima 2 Nuclear accidents too many! Radioactive fish, and a reactor thats still leaking into the sea, yeah great that we have nuclear power, its all great till something goes wrong!0 -
NoCapt'n Midnight wrote: »More on UK nuclear costs from the NY times.
It doesn't mention the investigation into competition so add another 2 years to the dates listed.
The political fallout is that it depends on giving a French company loads and loads of money and a guarantee of double the market price for the electricity. EDF want a 10% return on investment, the UK wants it closer to 8% and the deal could fall apart in the next month. If someone wants to explain how a difference of 2% could reduce the electricity costs to the market price I'd like to know.
There is little financial risk operating a nuke in the UK.
In the UK, the current maximum that a nuclear operator is liable is still only £140m.
That's 1% of the £14Bn price of the proposed plant. It's less than the £200m Centrica wrote off when they walked away from the project. It's a lot less than the £1Bn that EDF have already spent, and they are still spending £1m a day. Fukushima will cost 500 times this amount.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/energy-environment/britains-nuclear-plans-at-a-critical-point.html?pagewanted=1&ref=atomicenergy&_r=0
Much better of course that they come over here and cover our countryside with your demented whirligigs?0 -
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There's a difference.Curly Judge wrote: »Much better of course that they come over here and cover our countryside with your demented whirligigs?
whirligigs work
while they can crash and burn, it's unlikely that they'd even damage the next nearest wind turbine, nevermind cause £70Bn of damage
I think everyone agrees that investing in research will improve the efficiency and characteristics of renewables.
Thing to remember about nuclear is the "hidden" costs.
Just because new nuclear power in the UK is coming in at nearly twice the market price doesn't mean the costs won't go up. How much would insurance against a disaster cost ? How much will extremely likely cost overuns be or financing the interest costs during delays ?
A lot of people have proposed reuse of fuel as a panacea. While most others have given up Japan has invested at least $32Bn in fuel reuse. And in fairness they did generate electricity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/world/asia/18japan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=allThe Monju reactor, which forms the cornerstone of a national project by resource-poor Japan to reuse and eventually produce nuclear fuel, shows the tensions between the scale of Japan’s nuclear ambitions and the risks.
The plant, a $12 billion project, has a history of safety lapses
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Monju was reopened in May 2010, and just three months later, the 3.3-ton fuel relay device fell into the pressure vessel when a loose clutch gave way. In the two decades since the reactor started tests in 1991, the atomic energy agency has managed to generate electricity at the reactor only for one full hour.
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Meanwhile, other parts of Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle are also unraveling. The full opening of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the village of Rokkasho, in Aomori Prefecture, has been delayed countless times, with more than $20 billion invested in the project.
I just don't believe the nuclear industry gets it. You are running a reactor in Japan which has had some serious accidents, it's 2Km from a fault line, your budget has been slashed so how do you try to turn things around and re-build confidence ? A. Skip nearly 10,000 safety checks :rolleyes:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/316373/monju-fast-breeder-reactor-undergoes.htmlTsuruga (Japan), Mar 4 (Kyodo), 2013
Japanese authorities began a regular safety inspection today of the prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor Monju following a series of discoveries of sloppy equipment checks by the operator.
The regulator will mainly seek to verify during the quarterly inspection through March 22 whether the Japan Atomic Energy Agency has taken measures to correct its failure to check a raft of equipment last year, officials of the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
The authority will also investigate whether the operator of the plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, has been appropriately managing its fuel replacement unit inside the reactor, which was repaired last August following an accident in 2010.
The operator of the reactor on the Sea of Japan coast was found to have failed to conduct periodical checks on a quarter of its nearly 40,000 items of equipment before the deadline.
$32Bn would pay for a lot of renewables or methane hydrate research. (one article I'm trying to track down is about releasing the methane by sequestering carbon dioxide, if it's really carbon neutral and economic then things get interesting)0 -
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Like I posted earlier the UK had restrictions on sheep until last year because of what happened in Chernobyl in 1986. ( Caesium 137 has a half life of 30 years )Curly Judge wrote: »Much better of course that they come over here and cover our countryside with your demented whirligigs?
While it's unlikely there will be a repeat of the Windscale fire or other events the consequences of something closer to home would not be nice.
Also the Windscale fire is yet another example of something that would have been far worse if it hadn't been for by a lone voice insisting on safety measures that wouldn't have been fitted otherwise. It's a culture of optimism that the nuclear industry still has instead of planing for the worst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fireFilters were added late into construction at the insistence of Sir John Cockcroft and these were housed in galleries at the very top of the discharge stacks. They were deemed unnecessary, a waste of money and time and presented something of an engineering headache, being added very late in construction in large concrete houses at the top of the 400-ft (120 m) chimneys. Due to this, they were known as "Cockcroft's Folly" by workers and engineers. As it was, "Cockcroft's Folly" probably prevented a disaster from becoming a catastrophe.0 -
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NoCapt'n Midnight wrote: »Like I posted earlier the UK had restrictions on sheep until last year because of what happened in Chernobyl in 1986. ( Caesium 137 has a half life of 30 years )
While it's unlikely there will be a repeat of the Windscale fire or other events the consequences of something closer to home would not be nice.
Also the Windscale fire is yet another example of something that would have been far worse if it hadn't been for by a lone voice insisting on safety measures that wouldn't have been fitted otherwise. It's a culture of optimism that the nuclear industry still has instead of planing for the worst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
Sir John Cockcroft was a nuclear physicist.
In fact it was he and Irishman Ernest Walton who split the atom.
So, the advice to fit the filters came from within the industry and were part of the process. It's not as though some Greenpeace Messiah had sought them to be fitted.
Unlike the scrubbers at Moneypoint, I may add, which were not fitted until the station had been pumping 16 tons of sulphur per hour into the atmosphere for years. And that despite the fact that the ESB were warned they would be needed before the station was built.0 -
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The point is that one person insisted on safety features. Without him it would have been worse.Curly Judge wrote: »So, the advice to fit the filters came from within the industry and were part of the process.
In an industry with a culture of safety the absence of one person shouldn't make much of a difference.
I posted before about General Groves insisting on extended operation of the first reactor in 1943. And how ignoring him lead to a delay of months in producing plutonium for the Manhattan Project. The history of the nuclear industry is littered with the failures of people who thought they knew better.
Regarding the penny pinching of the ESB filters , that if nothing else shows why the same sort of people (politicans etc.) should not be in charge of decisions about nuclear power here.
You can add filters to a conventional power station but it's bloody expensive to add safety to nuclear power stations. (€25Bn by 2016 for the EU)0 -
Any concerns regarding safety in the nuclear industry, generally apply to the whole of the energy industry as the same companies invest in multiple technologies.
And if as suggested, politicians and the like should not be in charge of the decisions on nuclear, neither should they be in charge of decisions on fossil fuel and renewables.
If nuclear goes wrong it causes a lot of pollution.
But fossil fues don't have to go wrong to cause a lot of pollution; they cause a lot of pollution as a matter of course.
And renewables (read wind turbines) don't have to go wrong to cause a lot of pollution; they cause a lot of pollution (Low frequency noise pollution) as a matter of course.
As for costs, look at the anticipated cost of £160 billion in subsidies alone for wind turbines in the UK http://www.ref.org.uk/presentations/259-cheltenham-science-festival-wind-power-debate
"7. To drive investment to meet our targets we will have to subsidise the renewable electricity to the tune of about £8 billion a year in 2020, and for next twenty years. A modest target for renewable heat in the UK will cost £2 billion in subsidies. These sums would be unaffordable in good times, and are completely so in the present situation. No wonder that the Treasury is seeking to lift this burden from domestic households and businesses."
Furthermore CM has already admitted that the cost of renewables is currently too high to make them feasible (not that CM (or anyhone else) has produced a feasible renewables game plan at any cost).
And as for 'Whirly gigs working', they don't work when the wind blows too much, too little or not at all.
And for this reason, they are not a substitute for nuclear or fossil fuel power stations.
So when looking at the impact of nuclear, it has to be put into perspective by looking at the impact of fossil fuels, the only alternative.0 -
NoYou really hate wind power.0
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No
Perhaps they shouldn't propose a solution to it then?The nuclear industry creates the problem of nuclear waste and then proposes a "solution" to it...that's what amuses me..
Fast Breeder Reactors will be capable of reducing the amount of waste by 100 fold. They will consume the longer lasting actinides, including waste left over from the nuclear weapons programme.FBRs don't eliminate waste, they only reduce the toxicity and half-life, you still have to dump it somewhere which is why the US invested $10 billion to study dumping nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain before abandoning the project due to cost over runs..
The remaining waste can be stored on site for 40 or so years until it cools and then incorporated into a Pyrex type resin. This resin will then be sealed in caskets of stainless steel, lined with copper and bronze.
Something of the engineering which will go into the making of these caskets can be gauged from the fact that each 100 tons of metal will only contain 6 tons of nuclear waste.
They will then be buried in a deep geological repository, where they will need to stay for four or five hundred years. Not the thousands of years quoted by some opponents of nuclear power.
Not a bad system, I would have thought?
There are very few magic bullets for anything .There's no magic bullet for Nuclear waste..
At least that has been my experience.My main objection to Nuclear Energy is just simply the cost of it and supporters delude themselves and anyone gullible enough to believe them that it's a dream source of energy..
Then why are so many countries building them?
They can't all be looders.
The Swiss, Finns, Swedes, South Koreans [to name but a few] are not normally noted for throwing their money away, are they?
The real looders in my opinion are people who magic up schemes to extract the billions zillion joules of energy that are washing around our coast without having a clue as to how it is to be done... outside of wishful thinking, that is..
Countless?There are countless examples of where it's shown to be a complete failure..
On the other hand there are hundreds of nuclear power stations around the globe quietly churning out electricity, day after day, year after, for families and industry.
So what?were given the job of constructing a modern nuclear reactor in France which is 4 years behind schedule and €2.7 billion over budget..
Boeing are in trouble at the moment with their new airliner.
Airbus had lots of trouble with the A380.
Britain and France had plenty of trouble financing, building and managing the Channel Tunnel.
Large high tech projects have always given trouble.
Good engineers and managers eventually sort them out while the naysayers are running around forecasting the end of the world.
And yet the Finns are sending out tender documents to build a fourth reactor?and Siemens started constructing a modern nuclear reactor for Finland in 2005 which was scheduled to be completed by 2009. It's estimated cost was €3.2 billion. 4 years on, it's still not finished and the estimated cost is now €8.5 billion .
Funny people those Finns.
Have they not heard that the the inestimably clever Irish have banned their utilities from even discussing nuclear power/
As far as I know the Savannah River plant is to reprocess waste from the US weapons programme.The MOX program in US is 10 years behind schedule, has cost an estimated $5 billion and has no customers willing to use MOX fuel. Just another fine example of the Nuclear Industry cleverly conning the tax payer..
"Nothing to do with me Gov!"
Somebody should ring up and tell the Chinese. They don't seem to have heard that!Nuclear Energy has been a complete financial and technological disaster from the very beginning in every single country not to mention a danger to the environment and people, yet supporters in Ireland think it will somehow be different here? .
But it is happening!Keep dreaming of your Nuclear Utopia because without a source of cheap hydrocarbon energy required to construct the reactors, it will never happen.
All over the world!
And why?
Because there is no alternative.0 -
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Curly Judge wrote: »
Somebody should ring up and tell the Chinese. They don't seem to have heard that!
France, (undeniably the global leaders of Nuclear Energy) source most of their electricity from Nuclear Energy but are discussing ways to reduce their dependence, not increase it.
As for China, let's wait and see how that works out for them in the long term.But it is happening!
All over the world!
And why?
Because there is no alternative.
France and other countries will move towards more renewable solutions eventually.
Denmark is leading the way on this and currently gets 1/5th of it's electricity from renewable sources but they plan to be completely independent by 2050.
If Fusion is workable, that would change everything but who knows when that will happen.0 -
NoFrance, (undeniably the global leaders of Nuclear Energy) source most of their electricity from Nuclear Energy but are discussing ways to reduce their dependence, not increase it.
As for China, let's wait and see how that works out for them in the long term.
France and other countries will move towards more renewable solutions eventually.
Denmark is leading the way on this and currently gets 1/5th of it's electricity from renewable sources but they plan to be completely independent by 2050.
If Fusion is workable, that would change everything but who knows when that will happen.
Fusion would be lovely.
But it's at least 50 years down the road.
As of now it seems that it will only be viable in sizes of 1.000 MWe plus, which wouldn't suit the Irish market or infrastructure.
A PRISM reactor, on the other hand, could be up and running here within ten years. Modular, safe, economic and eminently sustainable.0 -
No
We don't to build one, we should just outsource our nuclear plant and build an Rea for within the sellafield compound. It would be much cheaper and wouldn't be anymore if a risk than sellafield already isCurly Judge wrote: »Fusion would be lovely.
But it's at least 50 years down the road.
As of now it seems that it will only be viable in sizes of 1.000 MWe plus, which wouldn't suit the Irish market or infrastructure.
A PRISM reactor, on the other hand, could be up and running here within ten years. Modular, safe, economic and eminently sustainable.0 -
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No
No. Just do itCurly Judge wrote: »
Don't you think we should ask the Brits if they would mind first?
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Please see my earlier post about Japan's attempt.Curly Judge wrote: »Fast Breeder Reactors will be capable of reducing the amount of waste by 100 fold. They will consume the longer lasting actinides, including waste left over from the nuclear weapons programme.
$32Bn and they only produced electricity for one hour.
The cleanup in Sellafield will cost €67.5Bn plus. Of the 14 contracts only one is fixed price.
Roughly half of the nuclear fuel used in the US in the last decade came the Megatons to Megawatts program. There is no longer a supply of Russian warheads. The program has ended.
If the UK can find a community willing to accept a waste repository then they may have one in place by 2040 at the earliest
Fusion is a long way off.Curly Judge wrote: »Fusion would be lovely.
But it's at least 50 years down the road.
As of now it seems that it will only be viable in sizes of 1.000 MWe plus, which wouldn't suit the Irish market or infrastructure.
A PRISM reactor, on the other hand, could be up and running here within ten years. Modular, safe, economic and eminently sustainable.
1000MW is small for proposed reactors, 1.3-1.6GW is more likely and like you say that sort of scale doesn't work in the Irish market.
PRISM in ten years, the Japanese reactor I proposed earlier started construction (how long for planning ?) in 1986, and has produced one hour of electricity since then. Sodium cooled reactors can be tricky. Ask the navies of the US and the USSR.
With nuclear technology it's usually a case of
We had the theory in the 40's
We had the materials in quantity and tests done in the 50's (or earlier)
We had the reactors running in the 60's (or earlier)
We differ on the results of experimental reactors.
You might say that if a technology worked in a hand full of small reactors for extended periods then it's ready for mainstream use.
I'd argue that if they had the technology working back in the 1960's and haven't got it working in a large reactor then the economics probably suck or there are technical problems or there is a cartel. I'd also argue that the history of sodium cooled reactors doesn't inspire confidence.
as the worst case effects of flooding on a sodium cooled reactor...
I haven't heard of any breakthrough in reprocessing costs recenlty. And nuclear is not cost competitive even without this additional burden.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/world/asia/18japan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all0 -
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The reality of the situation is that at present both wind and nuclear need backup. This can be from the existing fossil fuel plants or new pumped storage or large amounts of interconnectors.You really hate wind power.
Fossil fuel plants exist and are quick to build if more are needed. Moving from coal to gas to combined cycle gas reduces CO2 SO2 and radiation emissions from fossil fuel. Haven't done the sums but I'd imagine the dash to gas has done more to reduce these emissions than nuclear has, and at a lower cost.
Pumped storage, nice if you have it but bloody expensive unless someone can figure out a novel solution like artificial atolls (Belgium?). At present for the UK - our main energy link - Norwegian hydro is cheaper. CAES is also an option , if you have an abandoned mine near a lake and setup a gas turbine plant there.
Interconnectors. How much does France charge for off-peak nuclear and exports to it's neighbours. How does that price compare to the 10p per unit that EDF want in the UK ?
But wind isn't the only renewable, tidal and geothermal are predictable. Biomass is dispatchable but we won't have huge amounts of it.
Long story short, neither wind nor nuclear can displace fossil fuels by themselves. And we now get as much energy from wind in a year as from coal.0 -
20% of Denmark's electricity generation comes from wind but Denmark only manages to use about half of this i.e. 10% because the blowing of the wind is does not match demand. Subsequently Denmark exports (at a loss) its 'surplus to requirements' wind to its neighbours, Norway who can store it in their massive hydro facilities.Denmark is leading the way on this and currently gets 1/5th of it's electricity from renewable sources but they plan to be completely independent by 2050.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/Denmark/#.UUdq5DceYg8
"Although some 20% of electricity is produced by wind, the country's use of this electricity is much lower. A 2009 report by Danish policy think tank CEPOS estimates that Denmark consumes around half of its wind-generated electricity on averageg,1. Wind power is heavily subsidized by Denmark but, because this power is exported at the spot price, the subsidies are effectively exported. Moreover, the countries that the wind-generated power is exported to – mainly Norway and Sweden – are largely carbon neutral with regards to power generation, so Denmark's exported wind power does not save carbon dioxide emissions, instead displacing carbon neutral generation. On the other hand, wind power consumed within Denmark lowers fossil generation in the country."
Also interesting analysis re Denmark and nuclear:
"Robust connection between Norway's hydro turbines and West Denmark's wind turbines holds the key to successful exploitation of wind for Denmark, and the German and Swedish connections are nearly as importantc. The power imported from Sweden (6.6 billion kWh in 2008, 5.0 billion kWh in 2007, 1.7 billion kWh in 2006, 7.6 billion kWh in 2005) is almost half nuclear and half hydro. The power imported from Germany (1.4 billion kWh in 2008, 1.5 billion kWh in 2007, 4.0 billion kWh in 2006, 0.6 billion kWh in 2005) is largely generated by brown coal and nuclear power. (Germany itself imports 11 to 17 billion kWh/yr from France, which is 75-80% nuclear.) Norway is almost all hydro.
Hence nuclear power provides an essential part of Denmark's electricity. In 2008, with imports of 1.4 billion kWh from Germany and 6.6 billion kWh from Sweden, it would seem that about 3.6 billion kWh used was nuclear – nearly 11% of total final consumption, and over half [think this should say "more than" looking at earlier statements from this source]of the domestic consumption from wind."0 -
Firstly lets just be clear about the interconnectors; they are just a means of transporting electricity to places able to provide the backup.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »The reality of the situation is that at present both wind and nuclear need backup. This can be from the existing fossil fuel plants or new pumped storage or large amounts of interconnectors.
Next, backup - wind and nuclear need 'backing up' in very different ways, so much so that the term 'backup' is not applicable to nuclear.
Nuclear is good for baseload i.e. it can provide a steady supply of electricity to cover all electricity needed to meet minimum demand and thus can displace fossil fuels that would otherwise have to provide this.
As nuclear can also be controlled, it can be used to cover more than minimum demand.
What it cannot do so well is cover the dancing peaks and troughs at the higher end of demand which is where gas is important.
Wind on the other hand needs a system as described above because sometimes the wind blows too much (turbines have to shut down for safety reasons),too little or not at all - this is what is meant by 'back up' for wind.
What wind can do is provide some additional generation that may or may not be able to be slotted into the generation system and so may or may not replace a little generation from other sources.
Wind and nuclear are very different generators and to state that 'they both need backup' is disingenuous.0 -
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never does anywhere else. Sellafields decomissioning costs are being lumped onto the British taxpayer and run to billions. That might somwhat skew the "cheap energy" arguement. But sure. not bothering to deal with the waste produced seems to be the way to go. "Pile it up somwhere and let the next crowd deal with it" has been the industry default so far. Literally.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Finally some real costs on Nuclear in the UK
€5Bn per GW
€11.6c / KWh "nearly double the current market rate"
It's also likely to be delayed too
€5Bn / GW is from £14bn for 3.2 gigawatt
€11.6c /KWh is from £100/MWh - compare that to http://www.sem-o.com/Pages/default.aspx which shows our current market prices.
This is truly insane. Our wholesale only covers £100/MWh for about two and a half hours a day
http://imgur.com/ORrgmJe
The floor price for small wind here is €68.681 MWh so the €116/MWh for nuclear is nearly double the current market rate
Also financing the project will be harder.
Also I don't know if the price includes decommissioning or waste storage.0 -
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of course , but installing them is usually cheaper than building stations locallyChloe Pink wrote: »Firstly lets just be clear about the interconnectors; they are just a means of transporting electricity to places able to provide the backup.
France relies on interconnectors to export surplus nuclear energy,
yes they are very different. But in both cases fossil fuel or other alternatives are needed to fill in the gaps between supply and demand.Wind and nuclear are very different generators and to state that 'they both need backup' is disingenuous.
Also you need fossil fuel if a reactor goes offline
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2013/reactor_glitches_jan
http://www.realclearenergy.org/charticles/2012/11/05/nuclear_outages_above_normal_in_2012_106764.htmlFive Russian nuclear power plants (NPPs) started the new year with new statistics of scrams, emergency repairs, and power reductions – incidents that not only affect a station’s economic performance but can serve as precursors to more serious accidents at the site.- Southern California Edison's San Onofre, Units 2 and 3, where a steam tube leak last January led to the discovery of excessive wear in the plant’s new steam generators. The station's 2,159 megawatts (2.15 GW) have been down all summer and may not reopen until well into 2013.
- Progress Energy’s Crystal River Unit 3 (860 MW) has been offline since September 2009 because of cracks created when the containment was breached in order to install a new generator. Duke Energy recently acquired Progress and has not yet decided whether to try to reopen the plan.
- The Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun reactor (478 MW) has been offline since April 2011 when it was flooded by a rise in the Missouri River. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has refused to allow reopening because of additional issues. In August OPPD hired Exelon to manage the plant.
- Turkey Point Unit 3 in Miami (693 MW) underwent repairs through the spring and summer and only returned to service in October.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/18/utilities-nuclear-sanonofre-idUSL1N0CAC8J20130318The NRC staff and SCE have disagreed on whether the utility's plan to operate Unit 2 at a reduced rate complies with technical specifications in the unit's operating license.
Even though SCE said it will only operate the reactor at 70 percent power, the NRC staff said the license requires that steam generator tubes be able to operate safely "over the full range of normal operating conditions," including full power.
Nuclear isn't as controllable as you would like, yes the French have optimised their reactors to have more variable output than others, iirc there are downsides to this - cost/efficiency, but there are still problems with things like Xenon poisoning that limit how low you can go and still restart relatively quickly.
If a reactor is shutdown fully you have to wait for some intermediates to decay before you can start again. This explains why people have been hesitant to shut down reactors at the first sign of trouble.0 -
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House of commons / public accounts - economic and the timescales for the waste repositorynever does anywhere else. Sellafields decomissioning costs are being lumped onto the British taxpayer and run to billions. That might somwhat skew the "cheap energy" arguement. But sure. not bothering to deal with the waste produced seems to be the way to go. "Pile it up somwhere and let the next crowd deal with it" has been the industry default so far. Literally.
http://www.cnnewmedia.co.uk/locker/ns/pdf/pac_nda.pdfonly 2 of the
14 major projects were being delivered on or ahead of schedule in 2011-12,
...
The Authority is responsible for designing the geological disposal facility and its plan was that this facility would not be ready until 2040. Once a community has volunteered to accept this facility in their area, the plan allowed 15 years to complete the detailed geological assessments necessary before the site could be confirmed as suitable. After that, a further 12years would then be required to dig out the site and construct the facility.
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Only one of the 14 major projects at Sellafield involves a fixed cost contract. This means taxpayers, rather than Sellafield Limited or its subcontractors, bear the full cost of the work on the site regardless of whether there are delays and cost overruns.
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Q6 Chair:So how do we know that your dates are
deliverable? You are already behind. It is this sense
all the time, every time somebody looks at it, of a
few more years’ delay and a few extra billion pounds
in cost.
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Q10 Chair:In 2007, the total undiscounted cost of
decommissioning was thought to be £61 billion. By
March 2012, it was £100 billion
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Q49 Ian Swales:When you hear numbers like 2040,
that is just the definition of the long grass, as far as I
am concerned. If the progress is as you indicate, it is
not going to take another 27 years to dig a hole in the
ground, test it and use it. This is why, particularly in
the public sector, we worry about timescales of this
sort and whether it is just a recipe for policy delay or
huge sums of money being spent that are not needed
...
as I say, to me, 2040 is the
definition of the long grass. It is past all of our careers
and I think that feels like the objective of a lot of this
sort of discussion—sorry, most of our careers.
Chair:Most of our lives
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Long-term planning—With the length of the PBO contract lasting up to 17 years, this raises questions as to what incentive there is for the incumbent to plan for decommissioning activities effectively after that period? The report notes on p16 that “successive site operators developed
Sellafield without sufficient thought to decommissioning or retrieving and disposing of radioactive waste”. One reason for this could have been the lack of incentive as there was no profit to be made from such activity. With this in mind, what assurances are in place for the parent body company to plan sufficiently for activity that will take place after their contract has ended?0 -
Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,225 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 89464
Norway don't store the surplus. They just don't use the energy already stored. It's a subtle difference.Chloe Pink wrote: »20% of Denmark's electricity generation comes from wind but Denmark only manages to use about half of this i.e. 10% because the blowing of the wind is does not match demand. Subsequently Denmark exports (at a loss) its 'surplus to requirements' wind to its neighbours, Norway who can store it in their massive hydro facilities.
Electricity in Western Europe ebbs and flows across borders. French Nuclear at night, Danish wind when it's windy, Norwegian Hydro when demand is high. None of them can be considered in isolation because they are all interconnected.0 -
Just saw on the news there that there is a power outage at the fukashima plant and the reactors arent being cooled until the problem is fixed, it is thought that it will be okay but has to fixed within the next 4 days!.................................................................................................................................................................. time is ticking! Nuclear power is perfectly safe and the best we can hope for!0
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The point of matter here is whether other countries can supply further countries in this manner.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »of course , but installing them is usually cheaper than building stations locally
Thie relates to providing electricity when there is a shortage and to taking away excess electricity to balance a grid (either to use or store).
If they are very different why do you yet again lump them together in the same sentence under a disingernuous claim; nuclear does not pose the intermittency / variable issues of wind.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »yes they are very different. But in both cases fossil fuel or other alternatives are needed to fill in the gaps between supply and demand.
A nuclear fleet isn't going to stop across a whole country let alone across Europe because the winds not blowing.
Further more the issue with nuclear is one of excess production whereas the issue with wind is one of a deficit in production.
or another nuke, you can backup up nukes with nukes; you can't backup wind generators with wind generators.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Also you need fossil fuel if a reactor goes offline0 -
That depends upon whether they need it at the time iit's delivered.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Norway don't store the surplus. They just don't use the energy already stored. It's a subtle difference.
Storage also depends on whether they have any surplus storage capacity hence Denmark sometimes has to curtail its wind.
Put it this way, the system worked with fossil fuels and nuclear and nuclear was able to replace fossil fuel generators.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Electricity in Western Europe ebbs and flows across borders. French Nuclear at night, Danish wind when it's windy, Norwegian Hydro when demand is high. None of them can be considered in isolation because they are all interconnected.
The system could also work with just fossil fuels without any storage.
The system could also work with just nukes and some storage to manage the upper peaks and troughs of demand.
The system could not work with just wind (I know this isn't being suggested but
I'm illustrating a point) because the storage would have to be massive enough to supply electricity for days on end across Europe and the number of turbines needed would be equally out of reach. Furthermore when wind is incorporated it isn't able to replace any other generators.
So CM, from your posts, it seems we're back to your apparent preference for burning fossil fuels until a major break through occurs in power generation.0 -
Chloe Pink wrote: »Nuclear is good for baseload i.e. it can provide a steady supply of electricity to cover all electricity needed to meet minimum demand and thus can displace fossil fuels that would otherwise have to provide this.
As nuclear can also be controlled, it can be used to cover more than minimum demand.
What it cannot do so well is cover the dancing peaks and troughs at the higher end of demand which is where gas is important.
Wind on the other hand needs a system as described above because sometimes the wind blows too much (turbines have to shut down for safety reasons),too little or not at all - this is what is meant by 'back up' for wind.
What wind can do is provide some additional generation that may or may not be able to be slotted into the generation system and so may or may not replace a little generation from other sources.
The backup scenario for wind is more complicated than described above; it needs 'backup' generators that are capabe of cutting in to meet a sudden drop in wind output alongside backup generators to meet the peaks and troughs at the top of demand so the "spinning reserve" needed is greater for a system incorporating wind than for a system without wind.0 -
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,225 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 89464
One simple solution is to de-rate wind , if you only take 90% of wind energy then a 10% dip won't affect you.Chloe Pink wrote: »The backup scenario for wind is more complicated than described above; it needs 'backup' generators that are capabe of cutting in to meet a sudden drop in wind output alongside backup generators to meet the peaks and troughs at the top of demand so the "spinning reserve" needed is greater for a system incorporating wind than for a system without wind.
Yes gusts of wind affect output, but the effect averages out across a single wind farm. An entire country just isn't affected on that time scale, and besides we are linked to the UK and through them to Western Europe. You can also put anemometers around wind farms to give advance notice of of wind changes
Have a look at the eirgrid site sometime, it gives 15 minute wind predictions 4 days in advance so the amount of spinning reserve needed is known well in advance
wind energy can be used to spin the turbines of a pumped storage facility in air. this takes 1% of the turbine output - but hey it's free wind energy :pac:
the reason to do this is that it reduces the time to spin up to maximum output from a little over a minute to 6-10 seconds
We have 4 days notice of wind and falls offs can be responded to in 10 seconds0
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